chapter thirty five

word count: 582

bud took a deep cleansing breath and allowed his logical,,calculating mind to put some of the pieces of this puzzle together..

we had the dead girl,, the mother of the child,, jessica whatever her name was... a scared,, beaten imp of a girl,, that had worked in the cafeteria of the prison...

enter,, stan white,, prison guard,, fit for the father,,, he was there in the fore of the whole thing.. had access to the buckets as they seemingly appeared and disappeared like a magicians trick,, somehow in the safe confines of the doc..... yes,, bud believed he could make that happen...he had also been m.i.a.. since the finding of jessica's body..

bud could see it all so clearly now,, white had panicked,, when he had closed in on the woman,, and offed her in an effort to shut her up.. ok,, that fit too...

so far as bud could deduce thru the grieve soaked haze in which he was presently mired... white had been the missing piece in every thing so far,, well everything accept the dead junky.. sargent "ren" malleo's brother reuben,, how did white tie in??

there had to be something... something that bud was missing,, something that tied stan white to that murder,, coincidence was not a word bud believed existed for any good reason other than to provide the inept with an easy explanation,,, and mired in grief tho he was he was definitely not inept...

his mind cleared,, his heart raced.. he could feel it,, he was on to something,, all these years on the force had taught him one very important thing... your gut don't lie...

he picked up the phone and called the station.. he ordered a full background on everyone he knew to be involved,, stan white his partner vic di marco,, the girl, the confirmed mother of the fetus, jessica.. why the hell couldn't he remember her last name??? reuben malleo, deceased,, warren "ren" malleo ,, just because the guy hung his shingle out proclaiming himself to be a cop,, did not relieve him of being a suspect.. especially now,, with a dead brother and his mafioso ties...

"why hadn't bud seen the connection before??" he had had "ren" there with him in the parking lot,, the murder scene,, he had allowed himself to be blinded by sentiment,, and that fucking blind spot had provided exactly the the window that someone needed to crash into his home,, invade his world,, and kidnap his beloved janie...

bud worked it thru,, "ren" was a cop,, he was gonna be easy to keep tabs on ,, his brother was dead,, stan white was out there somewhere,, more than likely with his precious wife.. that left vic dimarco,, unaccounted for..

bud grabbed the phone and made a call to his partner,, red,, "vic di marco.. find him.. you can reach me on my cell..." he barked into the phone,, and snapped it closed.

that left the final piece... the yacovella family...

the family was more than likely gunning for who ever it was they suspected of killing "one of their own" no matter how many times removed... and if bud knew "uncle frank" like he thought he did ,, he knew his criminal mind had latched onto this whole stan white thing long ago,, as he had been unaddled by the wave of grief bud himself had succumbed to,, and not lost out on precious time...

bud grabbed his keys.. he knew now what the next step had to be... malleos restaurante.. he had to get to uncle frank....